Management Model for the Product Concept Phase in the Early Stages of Product Innovation Process

Abstract

The product concept phase of the product innovation process is a creative and interdisciplinary activity that transforms a market opportunity and technological innovation into successful products. It is a set of activity based processes in a product-oriented enterprise, and is essential to the economics success of such organization. Well-designed processes reduce development time, create better products, generate profit, and increase market share. In contrast, poorly-designed processes can harm both product lines and the companies that manufacture them. Determining important methods in the product concept phase and determining their relationship with organizational capability are crucial to the sustainable success in product development. Studying their relationship would give us insights into the product development dynamics. This paper will focus on the development of an engineering management model for the product conceptual phase of the product Innovation process. The (PCP) begins with the scope of the project having been formalized by either a request for proposal from an external entity or an internally generated mission statement. This document will specify a particular market opportunity and lay out the broad constraints of the project. Basically it will specify which direction to go, and will generally specify a precise destination or a particular way to get there. During the product concept phase, customer needs are identified, multiple product concepts are generated based on these needs, and a single product concept is selected for further development after a thorough evaluation has been accomplished. A well thought-out product concept will consist of a description of the form, function, and features of the product as well as a set of specifications, an analysis of competitive products, and an economic justification for the project. The aim of this paper to determine the most effective methods, tools and techniques to design a theoretical product concept phase (PCP) model, which consists of four activity elements or modules. The model highlights the iterative series of activities that may take anywhere from a few seconds in the minds of individuals to many months or years for defining a breakthrough concept. The product concept phase (PCP) model will be created during the problem definition activity very early in the product development process. The PCP module will be organized in a way that requires participation by virtually all the major product development functions within the organization such as marketing, technology, product design and manufacturing. It also involves interactions with stakeholders such as customers, suppliers that are outside of the organization. The interface of the PCP module to other product innovation process phases will be achieved through the design of an IT - Platform; that includes all the needs and requirements for and form other phases.